Sunday, June 24, 2007

Yesterday I swatched for the mystery stole, since I have never knit anything with Jaggerspun Zephyr. I was pretty sure that I would end up using 3.5mm (US4) needles, but never having used the yarn, I wanted to see for myself.

Left to right, that's US3, 4, and 5, after washing and blocking. The 5's are definitely out, since the fabric I got with those was too open and loosey-goosey. I'm still waffling between the 3's and 4's. I do like the way the 3 swatch looks, but am thinking the stockinette isn't quite open enough. I'll probably end up going with the 4's. Plus, I have an Addi Lace needle in US4. Have you tried those? Very nice, though way too expensive.

The other thing I'm waffling about is which beads to use. Emma and I went to the bead store when we were off island last week, and had way too much fun. Somehow, Emma has turned into a girly girl- she gravitated right to the sparkliest pink section of beads. Then again, she spent this morning in the sandbox building roads and lakes, and is completely grubby now, so I guess there's hope for her. She's figured out how to get the best of both worlds.

I picked out three colors of beads (8/0 seed beads) to try with the yarn:

Left to right, that's pearlized, white-lined clear, and silver-lined clear. I like them all pretty well, but the white-lined clear ones have definitely been eliminated for this project. They don't seem to show up much against the fabric. I can't decide between the silvery ones, which really sparkle, and the pearly ones, which are more refined but don't pop as much.

Right now the pearly ones are marginally ahead. I'm not a very flashy person, and considered doing the stole without beads at all, but I've never knit lace with beads before, and would like to try it out.

Little tubes of beads are like candy. So many options, so many choices, so delicious to the eye. In addition to the white beads for this stole,

I was also forced (forced, I tell you) to get a variety of choices in case I do a knitted/beaded project in a dark color, maybe black or dark purple...

Midnight blue metallic iris, black-lined clear, and hematite. Yum.

These are for knitting or crochet ONLY. I really AM NOT going to take up beading as another hobby.

5 comments:

I've been following the fish but I thought I'd add my comments on the beads. I'd go with the show stopping silver myself but that might just be because they look better in the photo. I knit tightly and always end up on one size larger needles than everyone else and I use a 4mm with Zephyr.

Lovely swatches. From over here, the one on the size 4s gets my vote. Of course, your knitting is always super, so they all look really good. The beads are harder. From the photos the larger pearly ones were more noticable, but the silver would be tempting too. Something about metallic really dresses an item up. I've never knitted with beads, but I have a friend who does and she loves it.